


the goddess finally sleeps, in the lap of her lover

by wrennette



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Blanket Permission, F/F, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25600597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/pseuds/wrennette
Summary: Quynh is Andromache's other half. Without her, she's lost at sea (aka the Andromache doesn't stop searching fic that wouldn't leave me alone)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 58
Kudos: 366





	the goddess finally sleeps, in the lap of her lover

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read the comics, and fudged the timeline the best I could from a video I saw on tumblr, but I'm not sure it's quite right and also I've stopped caring, because this chucks the movie canon timeline out the window either way. I vomited this all up in about 24 hours because I had a mighty need, then let it stew a couple days to make sure it gelled.
> 
> Title stolen from "Dance with Me" by Live

They search first by stealing the logbook of the ship, and by questioning every living soul who was aboard, and they can find. Nic does most of the legwork; sailors are a superstitious lot, and Andromache's face is far too well known in these parts. She has to sit in the shadows, memory replaying Quynh's anguish again and again in perfect detail. 

The sailors take contracts on other vessels. They disappear. They die. They refuse to answer questions. Andromache and Yusuf copy maps and logs, and spend their coin at an unconscionable rate. They hire a ship full of sailors and claim that the long chains they use to drag the deeps are dredging for cargo from a lost ship. 

Andromache sleeps only as much as her body demands. She invests in a foundering shipping company, if only so she can demand a vessel be kept ready to embark any time the whim strikes. She spends weeks upon weeks at sea, the long dredging chains pulling up all manner of treasure and trash, but never Quynh's iron coffin. She becomes an expert at raising and lowering the diving bell, and at free diving deep beneath that bubble of precious air. It helps that her immortal body will put up with stresses that would kill or incapacitate a mortal diver. She tries to follow the rules, but oftentimes she descends far more rapidly than is recommended, and stays down longer than any mortal might.

The first bell was a massive thing of black iron, nearly an inversion of the cruel cage they'd sunk Quynh inside. As soon as she can afford it, Andromache replaces it with a bell of gleaming bronze. It has no great technical advantage over the iron bell, and when she descends into the abyss, the darkness is absolute no matter the material of her equipment. But Andromache can't help but shiver with fear each time she's lowered in the iron bell, and it takes all her nerve to settle inside each time she dives, the similarities between the bell and the cage too great for her to ignore.

Deep in an abandoned mine in the hills of France, a massive tank holds gallons of sea-water, and inside, the iron coffin the witch hunters had meant for Andromache slowly rusts. Andromache travels to the mine once a year, watching as the glossy black of the metal slowly begins to go matte, then rust. As the years pass, she wonders if Quynh won't find her own way to the surface long before they manage to find the coffin's resting place beneath the waves. After half a century, the metal noticeably deteriorated. But it still holds strong beneath Andromache's fists when she beats at it in frustrated rage. 

The revolutions in France make travel to the mine difficult as the 1800s begin, and more than once Andromache is killed on the journey. Sometimes Nick or Joe will travel with her, but they also take odd jobs around Europe, selling their impressive skills as mercenaries. Sometimes, they speak of traveling to the Americas, seeing what they might find on the far side of the waters. Andromache knows that it's just talk - they don't quite trust her to look after herself full time, and instead circle through various bolt holes and sanctuaries, making the money that Andromache spends sailing out day after day, and improving the ships of their small fleet.

In 1812, the three of them wake from dreams such as Andromache hasn't had in hundreds of years. A new immortal has joined their ranks. They find him scared and disbelieving, as Andromache so long ago found Quynh, and Lykon, and Nicolo, and Yusuf. None of them see Quynh in the dreams, and Andromache's heart aches. 

When they explain it to Sebastian, he asks if that means Quynh is dead. Andromache resolves that she won't much like him, for all that he is family now. She returns to the sea almost at once. The sailors and shippers at her home port have become accustomed to her, and treat her with the usual superstitious respect. She is some sort of mythical creature to them, un-aging, ever seeking, drawn to the sea as they are. 

Andromache stays out at sea with only intermittent returns to port to stow on new supplies until the boys manage to convince her to run a job with them in São Paulo. The entire time they are in Brazil, Andromache's heart flutters in her chest, and it feels like tiny fists battering the inside of an iron cage. Sebastian proves an incredibly useful fellow, and Andromache can't help but like him at least a little despite her initial reservations. Even so, as soon as the job is done, she is out to sea again. Deep in the mine in France, the iron coffin weakens, but doesn't dissolve, and the minerals that leech into the water begin to encrust it with stone.

The boys manage to get her off the boats occasionally, but even when she is with them, helping with a job, Andromache's mind is often at sea. She reads voraciously about advancements in diving bells and costumes, ship engines, navigational equipment, and anything else she thinks might help her find Quynh. She returns to the ocean, marking the charts and re-reading the old logs, obsessing over where to dive. She adopts the new closed-circuit re-breathing apparatus, and outfits her new closed diving bell with powerful lamps to pierce the darkness of the depths, and stays down long after she should begin her ascent.

The second world war makes it harder to search. Submarines sink many of their ships, and nearly bankrupt the company. Andromache puts her diving skills to good use, running underwater rescues with skeleton crews, and memorizing every nautical chart she gets access to. 

It's as much luck as anything, when she finds the coffin. The exterior is so corroded and covered in growths, it's nearly invisible. A sudden explosion of bubbles from the seafloor draws Andromache's attention. When she approaches, her lamp lights familiar dark eyes wide with panic. It's the same expression that was on Quynh's face when they were forcibly parted, and only years upon years of discipline keep Andromache from accidentally drowning herself.

Andromache swims to the coffin as quickly as her long, powerful body can manage, unstrapping the galvanized steel axe from its carrying harness. Her first strike muddies the water, and she chips away more than two centuries of oxidation before she exposes solid metal. The axe bites into soft, old iron, and sticks.

With a heave, Andromache pulls her axe free, then swings again. She strikes at the chains and locks, again and again. Her arms ache. Quynh revives and dies and revives again, hands hammering at the inside of the iron coffin. Andromache sobs, bubbles rising from her mask. There's another full tank on the diving platform but she needs Quynh out of that coffin too desperately to swim there and back again. She swings again. 

The metal parts, finally, finally, and Andromache throws all of her considerable strength into levering the coffin open. The ropes they'd used to secure Quynh have long since rotted away, although her wrists are still shackled. Andromache drags Quynh from the coffin, drags her toward the light-ringed diving bell. She's disoriented and the oxygen in her tank is low, and when Quynh wakes, she struggles, fighting against a cage that no longer encloses her. Andromache loosens her hold, not much, just enough to dislodge her mask and seal their mouths, breathing some of her precious air into Quynh's lungs. 

Quynh gasps, the air breaking through instincts ingrained by centuries of drowning deaths. 

Andromache drags them both onto the stage, then up through the hatch into the bell, pulling her mask off and gasping and coughing and laughing hysterically. Quynh clings to her, stares at her in the sudden brightness of the bell after years of total darkness in the deep. 

"Andromache," Quynh manages to gasp out, and Andromache controls herself enough to pull Quynh the rest of the way into the bell, seal the hatch, and signal for ascent. Unable to look away from Quynh, Andromache fumbles blindly until she finds the rescue pack that she always brings with her, living in hope. She gives Quynh water first, slow, careful sips. Immortal healing will help immensely, but Andromache wants to make this as easy and painless as possible. 

By the time the water is gone, Quynh is nestled in Andromache's lap, her soaking wet hair trailing in long, ink-black rivers over her torso. Quynh takes food readily from Andromache's trembling fingers, kissing her fingertips with every mouthful. 

"You found me," Quynh says in quiet wonder, and Andromache breaks down again.

"Quynh, Quynh," Andromache breathes helplessly, tears pouring down her face. Quynh is so light in her arms, muscle wasted away over the years. She's never been alive long enough to hunger or thrist, but the constant drowning, dying, and reviving has its own terrible costs. 

By the time the bell reaches the surface in its slow ascent, Andromache has managed to tell Quynh some about the world they will emerge into. They depressurize as they rise to sea level, and the winch raises them carefully to the deck. The solid _thunk_ of the bell being placed on the deck wakes Andromache from a light doze, and Quynh is deeply asleep in her arms. 

Andromache opens the hatch, and sticks out her head, barking for the crew to clear the deck. She waits a few moments, then drops down out of the hatch, and carefully pulls Quynh from the bell. She carries Quynh through to her cabin, and places her in the shower for the moment. 

After radioing to the captain that their expedition is finished and they are headed to port, Andromache strips out of her diving suit and steps into the shower. The warm water cascades down over them, a luxury shipboard, but the company's done well since the war. Andromache washes herself quickly and efficiently, and is rinsing the soap from her skin when Quynh lashes out. 

Andromache hauls Quynh to her feet, holds her loosely and speaks in their oldest shared language, babbling reassurances. Quynh blinks at Andromache in disbelief, then dissolves into sobbing hysterics. Andromache washes her as she cries, rinsing the salt from her hair and skin. The water goes cold long before Quynh calms, but Andromache is happy to stand there and shiver, with Quynh in her arms. 

They dry each other off, and tumble into the bed, still clinging. Quynh's eyelids flutter, but she refuses to close her eyes again. Andromache doesn't mind. She doesn't want to look away either. They stare, hands moving slowly over one another's faces, sides, backs, shoulders, arms. 

Andromache's fingers tangle in the damp mass of Quynh's hair. It's grown impossibly long. Andromache buries her nose in it, breathes Quynh in. "I missed you," Andromache finally says. "I missed you so much Quynh. I've looked for so long, and I missed you so, so much." She isn't the poet Yusuf is, that's never been her strength. She thinks she might have to learn how, to express how good, how right, it feels to have Quynh's warm weight on her thighs, the lean strength of her clutched close.

Inevitably, sleep overtakes them both. They drift off wrapped around one another, clinging close, afraid to let go. Quynh jerks awake before long, gasping, the darkness behind her eyes too similar to the abyssal void. Andromache wakes with Quynh, the tension of her body and sharp gasping breaths rousing her. They nestle close again, again trying not to sleep, again failing. 

For hours they doze and wake, drift and startle. They become irritable, but they'd rather be together and furious than apart. Slowly, exhaustion drags them under, to sleep deep enough that even their terrors cannot wake them. 

Quynh wakes to soft sunlight and warmth, and is almost afraid to open her eyes. The familiar cadence of Andromache's breath brushes against her cheeks. She forces her eyes open, and it is real. Andromache's dark lashes rest against cheeks reddened with exposure and thinner than Quynh remembers. It is real, and she is awake, and she is alive, and Andromache has found her. Quynh leans in, brushing their mouths together, and watches over Andromache as her beloved sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm wrennette on tumblr, pillowfort and dreamwidth, feel free to come say hi!


End file.
